Marie Antoinette's personal jewelry was packed and sent out of France secrely in 1791. The boxes and caskets were received by the Queen's sister, Archduchess Marie Christine, in Brussels. She later turned the jewels (and money) over to her nephew, Emperor Francis II of Austria. Marie Antoinette's daughter, Marie Therese Charlotte de France (1778-1851), Duchesse d'Angouleme, inherited her mother's jewels when she arrived in Vienna in 1796. They remained in her personal possession during her many years of exile, both before and after the Bourbon Restoration in France. At the time of her death in 1851 at Frohsdorf in Austria, Marie Therese had many of her jewels in her apartments at Frohsdorf, while others were kept at the Imperial Treasury in Vienna. According to the terms of her July, 1851, will, the jewels were divided in thirds between her nephew, the Comte de Chambord, his wife, the Comtesse de Chambord, and his sister, the Duchesse de Parme. Since the Chambords were childless, upon the Comtesse's death in 1886, all of Marie Antoinette's jewelry passed into the Bourbon Parma line. Most pieces were left to the two daughters of the Duchesse de Parme: Marguerite, Duchesse de Madrid, and Alice, Grand Duchesse de Tuscany. Other pieces were left to the wife of Robert, Duc de Parme. Marguerite and Alice received magnificent diamond necklaces once the property of Marie Antoinette (which can be seen in the portraits of the Duchesse d'Angouleme at Versailles today). The Duchesse de Madrid's two daughters sold one of the diamond necklaces at Sothebys in 1937. It was sold again in the early 1970s and the location is now unkown. A pity that none of these magnificent pieces of the most famous French queen are not in the Louvre today.
